1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a message reception device and a message reception method for deciding the timing for delivering a received message to a user based on the user's current position, and a recording medium in which a program for receiving messages is recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for this type of message reception devices, those receiving e-mails are one example. In this case, a message means the data sent by a user of a message transmission device to a user of the message reception device, and in the case of an e-mail system, it means the e-mail to be sent.
In the following, a conventional message reception device will be described with reference to FIG. 8. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a simplified configuration of a conventional system including a conventional message reception device. In FIG. 8, the conventional system consists of a message transmission device 200, a message reception device 500, and a network 50 for connecting the message transmission device 200 to the message reception device 500. In addition, there are single devices having the functions of both the message transmission device 200 and the message reception device 500. The message transmission device 200 sends a message through the network 50, and the message reception device 500 receives the message sent through the network 50 and delivers the received message to the user. The message reception device 500 consists of a message reception unit 510 for communicating with the message transmission device 200 through the network 50 to receive the message, and a message delivery unit 520 which, together with a user interface, delivers the message received by the message reception unit 510 to the user. Thus, the user of the message reception device 500 receives and refers to the message prepared and sent by another user with the message transmission device 200.
In this case, the message reception device 500 of the conventional system delivers the message to the user through the message delivery unit 520, upon reception of the message. Therefore, even if the sender of the message sends a message having a content that is valid only at a specific location, the message is delivered irrespective of whether the recipient is at that location. Therefore, in order to send a message having a content that is valid only at a specific location by use of the conventional system, the sender had to send the message after having checked the current position of the recipient and making sure that the recipient was at the specific location. However, a sender can not always locate the current position of a recipient, and it was difficult to send correctly a message having a content that is valid only at a specific location when the current position of the recipient could not be known.
Next, another conventional message reception device will be described with reference to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a simplified configuration of another conventional system including another conventional message reception device. In FIG. 9, the same parts as FIG. 8 have the same reference numerals and their description will not be repeated. In FIG. 9, numeral 600 denotes a radio-relay system, and numeral 700 donates a message reception device. The radio-relay system 600 sends a message received from the message transmission device 200 through the network 50 to a message reception device 700 nearer to a radio. The message reception device 700 consists of a radio message reception unit 710 for communicating with the message sending device 200 through the radio-relay system 600 to receive the message, and a message delivery unit 720 which, together with a user interface, delivers the message received by the radio message reception unit 710 to the user. In another conventional system, by having the message transmission device 200 designate the radio-relay system 600 and send a message, a message can be sent to the message reception device 700 near the radio-relay system 600.
Therefore, the sender of the message can designate a specific area to send the message, and the user of the message reception device 700 can receive the message sent after the area has been designated. Further, another conventional system may send the message to a plurality of users after the area has been designated. However, with another conventional system, even when information that is valid in a specific area had to be sent only to a specific user, regardless of whether the user was actually in the area, the transmission of information still had to be maintained to that area, which was costly and ineffective.